Gord Johns on Petitions

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present a petition on behalf of many people from coastal British Columbia. We know that over 10,000 people have died as a result of the preventable opioid crisis from fentanyl-poisoned sources. This petition to address the opioid crisis calls on the government to declare it a public health emergency. As we know, there have been more lives lost to this opioid crisis than there were with SARS, H1N1 and Ebola.

The petitioners are calling on the government to declare the current opioid and fentanyl poisoning crisis a national public health emergency under the Emergencies Act in order to manage and resource it, with the aim of reducing and eliminating preventable deaths, to reform current drug policy to decriminalize personal possession, and to create, with urgency and immediacy, a system to provide safe, unadulterated access to substances so that people who use substances experimentally, recreationally or chronically are not at imminent risk of overdose due to a contaminated source. I hope the government will pay attention to this and take direct action.